Double Hulled Tankers for Heavy Oil Now the Law

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Double Hulled Tankers for Heavy Oil Now the Law
   
April 2007 - European officials 
Wednesday signed into law a requirement that only double 
hulled tankers carrying heavy oil can enter European ports. 
The law was enacted in response to disastrous oil spills from 
single hulled tankers the Erika in 1999 and the Prestige in 
2002. 
President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pottering, and 
Guenter Gloser, German Presidency representative and minister 
of wtate for European affairs in the German government, both 
signed the European Parliament and Council Regulation into 
law. 
Pottering said the law represents an important response to 
offshore tanker accidents and will lead to better protection 
of the seas and the environment from oil spills. 
President Hans-Gert Pöttering signs the oil tanker regulation 
while German Presidency representative Guenter Gloser looks 
on. 
"With this regulation, which will enter into force in a few 
weeks' time in the member states of the European Union, an 
important step has been taken to protect the seas from 
dangerous oil pollution in the event of shipwrecks," Pottering 
declared after the signing. 
Under the new regulation, oil tankers transporting heavy oils 
will only be allowed to fly the flag of a European Union 
member state if they are double hulled. 
In addition, regardless of what flag they are flying, only 
double hulled tankers will be able to enter member states' 
harbors or anchor in their territorial waters. 
The regulation applies in all the 27 member states and, now 
that it has been signed, will enter into force on the 20th day 
after its publication in the Official Journal of the European 
Union. 
European lawmakers began to pay close attention to oil spill 
damage after the single hulled Maltese tanker Erika broke up 
and sank off the French coast on December 12, 1999, spilling 
an estimated 3,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil that formed a 
slick 15 kilometers long. It polluted the north and south 
banks of the Loire River and the Brittany coast. 
Concern intenvironment newsified after the Bahamas-flagged
 single hulled 
tanker, the Prestige, sank off Spain in November 2002, 
releasing 80 percent of the tanker's 77,000 metric tons of 
fuel oil into the waters off Spain's northeast coast. 
Because the leaking Prestige drifted at sea for eight days, 
the spill contaminated six countries, with the worst impacts 
seen in Spain, Portugal, and France. 
The oil tanker Prestige sinks 
Experts predict the Prestige spill will affect marine life 
until at least 2012 because the oil spilled contained 
polyaromatic hydrocarbons. These toxic chemicals poison 
plankton, fish eggs and crustaceans, causing carcinogenic 
effects in fish and other animals higher up the food chain. 
In July 2003, the European Parliament and the Council of 
Ministers passed a law accelerating the phase-in of 
double-hull oil tankers and requiring a condition assessment 
for all tankers older than 15 years. 
Now, to provide additional protection against oil spills, the 
European Maritime Safety Agency, EMSA, has developed a 
satellite based monitoring system for marine oil spill 
detection and surveillance in European waters. The CLEANSEANET 
service provides a range of detailed information including oil 
spill alerts to member states, rapid delivery of available 
satellite images and oil slick position. 
While some EU member states already use satellite data to 
support marine surveillance on a national or regional level, 
other member states have not taken action in this field so 
far. 
The EMSA says a common approach to oil spill surveillance at 
the European level, using compatible data standards and 
methodologies, will support the development of robust 
statistics for oil pollution monitoring and create baseline 
measurements that may be extended in the future. 
For the detection of polluters, a European level system of 
continuous spill information with vessel traffic data should 
become operational in 2008.
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